A man pleads guilty to murdering five children and his brother and seriously wounding the children’s mother.
By doing this, Jarron Pridgeon avoids a trial by jury and possible death sentence.
Note: This is not considered a plea deal; everyone has the right to plead guilty to a crime and avoid a jury trial and lots of people do it, especially when the death penalty is a possible punishment.
Only juries can give a death sentence in OK.
In February of 2021, in Muskogee, Pridgeon shot and killed his 24 year old brother, Javarion Lee.
He also shot and killed 5 children:
9 year old Que’dynce Anderson
6 year old Neveah Pridgeon
5 year old Harmony Anderson
3 year old Jaidus Pridgeon
and 1 year old Jalaiya Pridgeon
He also shot and wounded the mother of the children, Brittany Anderson.
Her 3 other children in the home, were not hurt.
Pridgeon had pleaded not guilty, then wanted to change it to guilty by reason of insanity, but, with the jury trial set to start in 10 days, he pleaded guilty.
A judge sentenced Pridgeon to:
Murder: Life without parole
Murder: Life (to run back to back with count 1)
4 Murders: 4 Life terms (to run at the same time as count 1)
10 years for assault with a deadly weapon
8 years for having a gun as a felon (both to run at the same time as count 1)
No family members were in the courtroom today and no one gave a victim impact statement.
This is now a conviction.
Here are some of our previous stories on the case.
